While the outcome of the application of the broken windows theory is debatable, it has been credited by some (for example, Skogan, 1990; Kelling and Coles, 1996) with remarkable reductions in crime in New York City. When New York City’s police commissioner was William Bratton and the mayor was Rudolph Giuliani, the police in NYC practiced such relentless social control that they helped to change community norms (Delisi, 2003). Skogan (1990) points out that zero-tolerance policies related to social disorder, that were implemented in NYC, resulted in a dramatically safer and cleaner city. Wilson, himself, said in an interview that, “A lot of police agencies have responded to this idea of the broken window. Probably the most famous was the U.S.
